TSA is Removing Those Pesky Strip Scanners – from CNN
This week, the TSA announced it is ending its contract with Rapiscan “due to its inability to deploy non-imaging ATR software.” The Automated Target Recognition (ATR) software has been opposed by privacy groups since their introduction years back. In short, people do not like to be stripped searched naked in public,even virtually, hence these “backscatter” machines were reviled by some, and viewed suspiciously by the rest of us.The TSA will remove all 174 backscatter scanners from the 30 airports they’re used in now. Another 76 are in storage. It has 669 of the millimeter wave machines it is keeping, plus options for 60 more, TSA spokesman David Castelveter said.
The need to keep us safe from would be terrorists carrying either plastic or metalic weapons is seemingly outweighed by the need to keep these virtual strip search machines at bay. But what happens to these machines and how can they be utilized in new and surprising ways? The art world would be a strong possibility I think. I strongly suggest that the company L3 consider making arrangements with museums worldwide, with the intent of using these machines in a non invasive manner, on non living things, paintings.http://video.answers.com/row-over-lost-da-vinci-painting-517236409 In Europe alone, researchers have be stunned by how technology is revealing secrets hidden for centuries, paintings that, on the surface seem to be what they say the are, but in fact are hiding a treasure trove of information not seen by the naked eye.
Case in point: the recent discovery of sketches one of Da Vinci’s greatest paintings, a discovery that shocked the Louvre. Now researchers have also shocked the world by finding yet more symbols, hidden in some of the most important artwork in human history. How easy it would be to use these amazing machines in the archives of the many museums that strive to unlock the mysteries of thousands of paintings thought to contain all manner of secrets. Now that a real life Da Vinci code quest has been called off because of “invasive technique concerns” perhaps the incorporation of these scanners into archival settings will bring forth a wealth of information that these artworks seem to be slowly revealing., mysteries hidden for centuries, unknown knowledge told to canvas by artist, and hidden by pigment only to be revealed countless years later. There is your Da Vinci code, your Caravaggio code, your Bellini code, your skeleton key to history…And perhaps a better use for those Orwellian TSA machines would be in unlocking the countless riddles hidden by those amazing artists of the Italian renaissance. The journey could start here at the famed Uffizi gallery. Log on to www.uffizi.org for a wonderful stroll down history’s corridors.